Topology Control with Anisotropic and Sector Turning Antennas in Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks

During the last several years, technological advances have allowed the development of small, cheap, embedded, independent and rather powerful radio devices that can self-organise into data networks. Such networks are usually called ad-hoc networks or, sometimes, depending on the application field, sensor networks. One of the first standards for ad-hoc networks to impose itself as a fully industrial framework for data gathering and control over such devices is IEEE 802.15.4 and, on top of it, its pair network architecture: ZigBee. In the case of multiple radio devices clamped into a small geographical area, the lack of radio bandwidth becomes a major problem, leading to multiple data losses and unnecessary power drain from the batteries of these small devices. This problem is usually perceived as interference. The deployment of appropriate topology control mechanisms (TC) can solve interference. All of these algorithms calculate TC on the basis of isotropic antenna radiation patterns in the horizontal plane.